Budget Boot Camp

When Claire and Beth invited me to participate in their 90-day Budget Boot Camp last month, I answered immediately with a resounding YES! I have always considered myself a frugal person. I shop the deals and I cook my meals from scratch. But the last two years have been extremely detrimental to my finances and my budget, and I am determined to get back on track. I love how Claire worded the challenge:

“Would you like to cut down your budget even more? Maybe you’re at the beginning of the frugal journey and need to lose the equivalent of 20 pounds in budget or maybe you’re doing pretty good but can’t get off that final 5 pounds.”

I admit. I have a few budget pounds to lose. Here’s a run-down of my shopping and cooking habits and history:

1. I love to cook, but I hate to decide what I’m going to cook. I know that spending a few minutes every 2 weeks or so to plan out several meals in advance is SO worth it, and yet I rarely stick with it. My bad.
2. I like the idea of coupons, and use them when I can, but I often find that I can get better deals by buying generic. I get jealous when I hear about friends who have mastered the art of couponing and see the deals they come home with.
3. My favorite way to shop is to stock up on each store’s current deals and then “shopping” my food storage shelves in my basement. I keep tons of cans and boxes on shelves and freeze meat in bulk.
4. It is impossible to budget $0. When I had a steady income coming in, it was easy for me to say that I could spend X amount on groceries and other miscellaneous supplies each week. But when I had nothing coming in for months, I got into the habit of a) shopping only with cash on hand (which is a good thing), and b) not sticking with a plan (which is a not-so-good thing). I kind of gave up on budgeting, planning, stocking up, etc. It was scary to see my food supply dwindling.
5. Now that we’ve got a little bit of income trickling in, I want to get back into my better habits of planning ahead, stocking up, and I would love to master shopping with coupons.

Starting this week and through September, Beth from In Good Cents and Claire from Mummy Deals are going to be sending me and 5 other amazing bloggers through Budget Boot Camp. Each week, we will have a challenge, and each week we’ll report back to you how we’ve done. You can follow along each week on my blog, or join us on the Budget Boot Camp Facebook page. Oh, and did I mention there will be linkies and giveaways, too? Are you ready to kick some budget booty?

– -The Challengers – –

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About Lolli

Lolli has written 3740 post in this blog.

I became a mom in 1996, and in 2005 I had my fifth. Yes, 5 kids. In 2007, this blog was born (my 6th baby that will never grow up) and I've been sharing recipes, photography tricks, parenting tips, and everything in between. (Formerly Better in Bulk)

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